Amidst the rain season, EcoNusa team and School of Eco Diplomacy alumni distributed farming tools and some medical kits in some villages in West Papua on Friday, 29 January 2021. The distribution was intended to support local villagers to prevent from Covid-19 transmission and food security.
After 5-hour travelling through hard track, the team paid a visit at three villages, Klayili, Klatomok, and Malaumkarta, in West Papua. Klayili was the first village to drop the farming tools such as hoes, boot shoes and fertilizers to the locals. The village is on the high land among hills with thick forests. Peoples residing in this village are mostly of Moi tribe. They intermingle with some non-native communities.
Klatomok was the second to visit. The local community gave warm welcome as many of them were waiting for the team along the road to this hamlet. They waited the distribution of farming tools. EcoNusa and SED teams had conversations with local peoples on their daily lives, livelihood and education access to the local children. Most of Klatomok peoples are farmers planting vegetables and tubers. The given support with farming tools were expectedly to ease their farming activities. They do the farming while keeping the nature surrounding their village sustainably as nature is their sources of food which should be taken care of.
The last venue to visit was Malaumkarta, a village in Makbon District. Traveling to the village gave wonderful view of forests and mountain stretching along the route. The trip also passed the clean Makbon beach. Most of the communities in this village, which is slightly different from the previous villages, work as sea transportation providers to tourists heading to Um Island. But, they are also vegetables growers. Um Island is one of the tourism destinations with charming beach view and a flock of flying bats.
The distribution of farming tools was deemed the commitment of EcoNusa’s support to communities. Utreks Hembring, representing EcoNusa in distributing the farming tools, said, “By distributing these farming tools, we focus on community food aspect, particularly amidst the pandemic with local economy drop which stop them to go to town. For the reason, we from EcoNusa provide these farming tools as our supports to economy during the recent pandemic.”
Saiful Umam, an alumni of Intermediate SED joining this activity, also felt that the community was in need of support for food security during the pandemic.
“The trip was so challenging as we passed through mountainous roads that are from development. However, the toil paid when the distribution of farming tools are very useful to the local communities. Hopefully the distributed stuffs would help boost local economy and their lives, particularly during the hardship of pandemic,” said Saiful.
** The writer is an alumni of Basic SED in Sorong, who currently works on her thesis to complete the studies at a public university in Sorong.
Editor: V. Arnila Wulandani & Leo Wahyudi
